Arms Embargo

An arms embargo on Somalia will be eased for a year, allowing the country's new government to buy some weapons to battle religious extremists, the U.N. Security Council said Wednesday. The Security Council resolution adopted Wednesday maintains the ban on surface-to-air missiles, higher-caliber guns, howitzers and mortars, anti-tank weapons and other heavy firepower, but allows other arms to be sold to Somali security forces. It bars those arms from being resold to anyone else. The Somali government is also required to inform a U.N. committee before any weapons or military equipment are delivered and provide details about the shipments.

An arms embargo on Somalia will be eased for a year, allowing the country's new government to buy some weapons to battle religious extremists, the U.N. Security Council said Wednesday. The Security Council resolution adopted Wednesday maintains the ban on surface-to-air missiles, higher-caliber guns, howitzers and mortars, anti-tank weapons and other heavy firepower, but allows other arms to be sold to Somali security forces. It bars those arms from being resold to anyone else. The Somali government is also required to inform a U.N. committee before any weapons or military equipment are delivered and provide details about the shipments.

The Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia, aiming to press President Slobodan Milosevic to make concessions to ethnic Albanians in his country's restive Kosovo province. China abstained from the vote, saying the resolution would not help negotiations on giving Kosovo's Albanians more autonomy.

A Thai court has agreed this week to hear an appeal by suspected arms trafficker Victor Bout, a move likely to frustrate, at least temporarily, U.S. efforts to extradite him on four terrorism-related counts. The former Russian military officer earned international notoriety in the post-Cold War era for allegedly arming a rogues' gallery of terrorist groups, militias and governments, many of which were under a United Nations weapons embargo. If the court proceeds with the appeal it accepted Wednesday, Bout could remain in a Thai prison beyond the Nov. 20 U.S. extradition deadline, a date determined after an earlier court decision.

The leaders of Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo and Gabon, meeting in Nigeria to discuss unrest in Ivory Coast, backed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an arms embargo on both rebels and the government. The council had been expected to impose a ban on weapons purchases from Dec. 10 at a meeting today, but the six African leaders called for the sanctions to take immediate effect.

China announced Sunday that it will join Western nations in an international arms embargo against Iraq in response to that nation's invasion of Kuwait. Beijing's action came after two days of talks between Chinese officials and visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard H. Solomon, who flew here Saturday to discuss the Iraqi invasion, Cambodia and other issues.

The United States ended a 12-year-old embargo on military supplies to Argentina by signing a $13-million sales agreement today. The Defense Ministry said the two countries signed an accord for the United States to sell Argentina spare parts for military helicopters and armored troop carriers. President Jimmy Carter in 1977 slapped an arms embargo on the then-military government because it violated human rights.

Bosnia-Herzegovina will sue Britain in the World Court for violating a 1948 convention against genocide by opposing the lifting of a U.N. arms embargo that it says prevents the former Yugoslav republic from defending itself, Bosnian U.N. envoy Muhamed Sacirbey told a news conference Monday. Bosnia will also charge that Britain, as a permanent member of the Security Council, "illegally imposed and maintained an arms embargo" against it in violation of Article 51 of the U.N.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, attempting to soothe American allies on Bosnia-Herzegovina, promised Saturday that Washington will not break a U.N. embargo by supplying weapons to Muslim forces. A U.S. decision to withdraw from the international naval blockade enforcing the embargo has upset countries that have troops serving with the U.N. Protection Force in Bosnia.

President Clinton said Friday that he will unveil a new strategy within days for deterring Serbian aggression in Bosnia-Herzegovina, hinting that the new plan may call for lifting the arms embargo in an effort to aid the Bosnian Muslims. Abandoning previous arguments that allied objections would stymie any such move, Clinton told reporters during his second presidential news conference that the issue now is whether ending the embargo "will . . .

West African leaders said Saturday that they are imposing an arms embargo on Guinea over the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators by soldiers and will try to stop Guinea's military ruler from running in January's presidential election. Regional leaders attended an emergency meeting Saturday of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, and said at a news conference afterward that they would step up pressure on members of the military government, which took power in a coup in December, not to seek office.

The United Arab Emirates this month seized a cargo ship bound for Iran with a cache of banned arms from North Korea, the first such seizure since sanctions against North Korea were ramped up, diplomats and officials said Friday. The seizure was carried out in accordance with tough new U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. Diplomats identified the ship as a Bahamian-flagged cargo vessel, the ANL Australia, and said it was carrying rocket-propelled grenades and other arms.

Israel's political rivals Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzipi Livni met for the first time since an indecisive Feb. 10 election to talk about a future government. Netanyahu, hawkish leader of the right-wing Likud party, is trying to persuade Livni, the foreign minister, to be part of a joint government. Meanwhile, Amnesty International called today for a global arms embargo against Israel, accusing it of using white phosphorous and other weapons supplied by the United States to commit war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

A sporting goods store in a small northern Pennsylvania town is the unlikely focus of a federal investigation into the suspected reemergence of the global arms transport network controlled by Russian businessman Victor Bout. Federal officials said this week that a recent search of the store near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., sought to learn whether a Bulgarian firm in Bout's business empire was being used to purchase restricted paramilitary items for a company tied to Russia's intelligence agency.

Re "Sudan War Spills Into Chad," June 19 Instead of waiting for permission from the criminal Sudanese government for an invitation to send in peacekeepers, the United Nations should organize an immediate and total arms and ammunition blockade of Sudan. Presumably all of Sudan's neighbors would cooperate. This would stop the killing, and then the prosecution of crimes against humanity could proceed. It's incredible how impoverished nations can always find the money to buy arms. ALEX MURRAY Altadena

March 23, 2005 | John Daniszewski and Tyler Marshall, Times Staff Writers

Plans by Europe to lift an arms embargo against China this year are in doubt because of rising U.S. pressure and unease on the continent resulting from Beijing's recent warnings to Taiwan, diplomats said Tuesday. European Union officials have characterized ending the ban, in place since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, as a step toward normalizing trade relations with China, and have said that they would not inaugurate arms sales to the Chinese.

An Agoura man carrying boxes of technical manuals for fighter-bombers was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after authorities concluded that he was taking the manuals to South Africa in violation of a U.S. arms embargo, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles Federal Court. Edward James Bush, 51, was arraigned Monday on charges of violating the federal Arms Export Control Act.

Re "China Embargo Divides Allies," (Feb. 27): The European Union intends to lift the arms embargo it put in place against China after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Since that time, however, human rights in China have not improved. The international community should strongly oppose the lifting of the ban. The stakes of China's military gaining even more strength are enormous. It would tilt the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait and lead to possible armed conflict. The EU has stated that the Code of Conduct governing sales to China will alleviate this possibility.